The Emperor’s Angel of Death

After outlining his plan, Bahram looked at the others. Mark nodded in agreement.

"I think it's feasible."

Oscar pondered for a moment before speaking slowly:

This book is first published on 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞 across the entire network.

"It's alright, I guess. Since we have to fight, there's no other choice."

"Then let's proceed with this deployment."

Soon, the ready Imperial fleet within the system began to move. At this time, the Tyranid tendrils were rapidly approaching Vestro IV. Two Imperial sub-fleets waited three million kilometers away from the planet, on the far side, hiding themselves from the Tyranid tendrils' line of sight. Although it was difficult to completely evade the Tyranids' sensory organs, for these gluttonous devourers, devouring the prey already within reach was the most important thing.

Meanwhile, the central fleet led by Bahram accelerated towards the Tyranid fleet. He was closer to the Tyranid hive fleet than ever before. They were like a massive wave sweeping across the galaxy, almost obscuring the light of distant stars. The sheer number of bio-ships could shake the strongest faith.

It was as if a giant maw was slowly opening before him, ready to swallow him whole.

The appearance of Tyranid bio-ships was almost never uniform. Some had massive blades or armored beaks at the front, others had long tentacles, and still others used battering rams as prows, or carried ultra-large bio-weapons hidden in huge, never-closing throats.

Although many bio-ships had chitinous armor covering the front, common to most Tyranid organisms, and the scale of the armor was immense, other parts seemed to have no protection other than skin, which seemed to be a weak point for attack. Moreover, the tails were unusually long. Bahram didn't know if attacking the tails would reduce or even destroy their mobility. In addition, these bio-ships also had the signature sulfur patches of the Cerberus hive fleet.

Bahram realized that within the diversity of the Tyranids lay a terrible consistency, and this consistency was their most powerful weapon.

"Report! Enemy ships have initiated landing!"

The display showed that a swarm of bloodthirsty parasites had appeared in the orbit of Vestro IV, a planet with a blue exterior. They were like ticks clinging to a prey's body, piercing the planet with their venomous mouthparts. The most conspicuous were over thirty giant bio-warships, descending into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, with tentacles probing from below. Ripples spread across the sides of the bio-warships as they spewed out massive amounts of spores towards the planet's surface.

This was the only fortunate aspect of the Tyranid fleet. At least they had no concept of "orbital bombardment," let alone weapons of extinction.

"Left and right flank fleets, attack."

Upon receiving the order, two fleets attacked from behind the planet, bypassing it and firing fiercely at the Tyranid ships attempting to deploy more spore cysts. The Tyranid bio-ships were caught off guard and suffered heavy casualties.

Dense lasers and shells tore through the hive ships' vesicles, and excretions composed of atomized fluids billowed out.

In response, the bio-warships clumsily shifted to the side, spewing out a series of bio-torpedoes and bio-plasma from convulsing launch ports, as well as unique high-temperature crystals. These counterattacks struck the human ships' void shields, stirring up ripples.

The back-and-forth fire between the two sides, against the backdrop of the star system, pieced together bright lines of blue and red.

With a series of torpedo strikes, the head of a giant Tyranid Harpy exploded into fragments, and massive amounts of liquid and organ fragments spewed out from the frontal wound. Although the symbiotic weapon organisms were still firing, the bio-ship was already dead, spewing out large amounts of gas haphazardly from the tips of its thrusters. Then it slowly broke away from the formation and plunged towards the planet's surface, turning into a huge fireball due to the intense friction with the atmosphere.

"Hmm? Did we shoot down an enemy ship?"

The massive meteor fell towards the planet's surface. Although the atmosphere ablated most of it, the remnants were still enormous. When it landed, even the distant Tekshar could feel the earth shake.

Defending a city is not an easy task, even for Space Marines, especially since this planet is relatively backward and the city is mostly flat, yet it is forced to accommodate more than ten times its original population.

This is Trident City. As the name suggests, the city is built at the confluence of two rivers, forming a trident shape. This is a very traditional city layout, which results in its urban area being divided into three parts by the rivers. However, the advantage is that the rivers at least appear to be a barrier. Originally, the city was the fifth largest on the planet, with about a million residents, mainly engaged in small-scale industry, commerce, and religious industries, surrounded by large areas of countryside. But now, the city has gathered tens of millions of people, making it more crowded than ever before. All open spaces, squares, parks, and churches are filled, and even that is not enough. Many people are forced to use simple rafts as temporary dwellings on the relatively calm river surfaces and set up tents.

Having seen the towering and massive hive cities of the Imperium, Tekshar felt very uncomfortable with this primitive settlement. But now he had to defend it, otherwise it would become a Tyranid granary.

The forces stationed in Trident City included 450,000 auxiliary troops and 3 companies: the 7th and 9th companies of the Astral Knights, and the 3rd company of the Flesh Tearers. Each of the three companies was responsible for a district and its millions of inhabitants. In the past, this would not have been a heavy task, but facing the Tyranids...

To make up for the lack of troops, many young adults were conscripted into the army. But to call it conscription was really just giving them primitive weapons and tying them to the positions until they died—although the hive cities were violent and dark, at least there was no shortage of weapons. In these worlds ruled by the Ecclesiarchy, military force was ridiculously weak. Not to mention basic lasguns, even the various homemade projectile weapons common in hive cities were rare items.

As a result, many militiamen actually only had melee weapons, such as spears made of metal railings, or swords and knives temporarily collected from various places. But asking these untrained people to fight Tyranids in close combat made Tekshar feel like he was going crazy.

But there was no choice. The front lines always needed someone to fill them. Due to urban expansion, it had long exceeded the original city walls. Now, they could only use various demolished building ruins and dug trenches to construct several lines of defense. These lines of defense at least needed living people to stand there to be of some use. Even more deadly was that once humans gathered in excessive numbers, chaos inevitably arose. To maintain stability within the city, some limited weapons had to be supplied to guards and patrols to suppress various crimes and riots.

"It's just one ship, I wonder how many there are in orbit."

Withdrawing his gaze from the sky, Tekshar turned his attention to the distance. He was responsible for the left district, which used to be mainly a commercial center, with rivers on both sides. Only the front was an open plain, dotted with woods. However, those woods had been completely burned down two days ago, just to create a firing range.